Story highlights
Archaeologists on a routine dig in Luxor made the discovery, state-run paper says
Officials say the human-shaped sarcophagus dates back to 1600 B.C.
It belonged to a top government official, whose mummy was inside
Archaeologists say they unearthed a rare find during a dig in Egypt: a sarcophagus that’s 3,600 years old – with a mummy still inside.
Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported Thursday that a team working on a routine excavation at a tomb in Luxor uncovered the painted, human-shaped sarcophagus.
It dates back to 1600 B.C., when the Pharaonic 17th Dynasty reigned in Egypt, the country’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said.
The sarcophagus belonged to a top government official, whose mummy was enclosed inside, Al-Ahram said, citing Egypt’s antiquities minister, Mohamed Ibrahim.
The sarcophagus is engraved with titles of the official, but archaeologists haven’t yet been able to identify him, Ibrahim said.
The Spanish-Egyptian team also found two other burials while digging at the Draa Abul-Naga necropolis on Luxor’s west bank, Al-Ahram reported, but both were empty.
“It is believed they were robbed in antiquity,” the newspaper reported.